Van Gogh, Matisse, Pollock, DeKooning, Rothko, Kline, Diebenkorn, Scholder, Jenkins, Richter...
Several artists have inspired me at different times in my life. The names above hold the most sway, I suppose. It's a pretty diverse bunch. I'm sure I'm leaving someone out whom I shouldn't.
My recent work is largely focused on abstractions, with stylized color and texture modulations that, when successful, synthesize into emotive expressions and energies.
I don't despise realism in painting. I quite like it, actually, but only in small doses. It's just that, after many years of artistic experimentation, I find that both the making of abstract art and living with it in my own home are more satisfying for me and my restless temperament.
Realism tells me a story--often a very good story--but once I know that story, I don't need to hear it again for a long time. Abstraction, on the other hand, is more like spice on your food or jazz instrumentals. It creates a flavor...a mood. It can be mysterious and unpredictable, so it stays fresher longer, for me.
I am always working toward a unique and genuine visual language and am rarely satisfied. After working many years as an art director and computer designer, now my artwork is purposefully rough and obviously handmade. Now, I want to be away from smooth, glass screens as much as possible. And, in a seeming contradiction, even though my paintings can be very tactile, I feel many of them hearken more to the quantum than the physical realm, (although, I do still add "real world" elements from time to time).
I went to art school for a few years in Colorado in the late 1970s. Afterward, I spent many more years living in and around the Rocky Mountains. I attended artist workshops with great American landscape painters like Merrill Mahaffey and Alan Gussow, who also had a love for
the Rockies and the greater American West. But, I was never quite fully satisfied with landscape art and I eventually began exploring all of the exciting abstract art that was going on at the time in New York, Los Angeles, Santa Fe, and Paris.
Most recently, in the last 10 years or so, I have found myself most inspired by two great abstractionists, Paul Jenkins and Gerhard Richter. But, interestingly enough, my paintings were not inspired by them. It has only been in hindsight, that I have seen that my work, which I came upon by myself and after many years of experimentation, has some kinship to theirs. So, they inspire me to continue, since they both were able to carve out successful art careers.
